As far as I see, The Dark Knight continues to be marked as available for rental on 12/26 (as they days tick by) but is still actually ‘purchase only’ (BUY THIS MOVIE), both on Apple tv and iTunes. Pretty soon, I’m gonna download it from my PS3 and be done with it… I must admit that this is the strangest thing that’s happened on Apple tv, and I’m beginning to think the studio is simply succumbing to their greed since the the title is probably their most popular purchase download (i.e., to hell with the rental commitment date)… But it also seems that some have actually downloaded it? It leaves me confused.

Hi all,

I think I found a solution for this rental issue. Just hit the “View Trailer” button” and like magic the “Rent this movie” button appears!
I tried it a couple times and it seems to work every time.
Good luck and happy watching!
Rick

THis has been a big disappointment…as of last evening, I still couldn’t download…I did notice however that HD version was also not available on Comcast? Kinda drove me crazy this weekend!

This was driving me crazy all weekend. I was constantly looking to rent the dark knight, but with no luck. This morning, magically the dark knight was available to rent in HD on ATV. I few days late, but at least it is now available.

I cannot even view the trailer on itunes and the purchase button is greyed out. It’s very irritating.

For iTunes, just go to this link and let your browser open iTunes. The rent button will show up: http://itunes.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewMovie?id=290567624&s=143441&v0=WWW-NAUS-ITUWEEKLY-OVERVIEW

It’s obviously going to a different ‘page’ in iTunes when you do it that way because if you then click “The Dark Knight” in the bread crumb trail at the top, the rent button disappears again. What a joke.

Anyway, Apple TV users seem to be utterly screwed (which includes me). I have tried changing my Location on Apple TV to Canada…doing that makes the rent buttons show up, but I’m pretty sure either the transaction will fail or I won’t be able to play it if I try to rent it that way…if anyone wants to try that and report back that’d be great:)

I’m trying real hard not to rent this off XBox Live, but this crap is trying my patience. This still being screwed up after 3 days is completely unacceptable.

Also, interesting that Comcast doesn’t have the HD version either!

So how about a little roll call to see where TDK is and isn’t showing up as a rental and in HD.

I’ll start…

San Diego, Ca

iTunes – Available as rental
Apple TV – Available in HD

Edit my above post – it is available in itunes using the ‘trailer’ trick.

Half way between L.A. and San Diego (in OC):

iTunes – Available as SD rental if, and only if, I use the link provided by George. Otheriwse, it’s purchase only…
Apple TV – Only available for purchase in SD.
PS3 – Available for rent in HD.

My patience with Apple (and/or Warner Bros) is nearly at an end. Sony’s Playstation 3 will win if Apple doesn’t get their @^&$&#! together very presently…

Poughkeepsie, NY

Apple TV – Rented in HD with no problems on Saturday night.

Finally!!!

TDK is showing up available for rental on my AppleTV. (wasn’t as of 24 hours ago)

Denver, CO

I have to say I have no idea how Apple distributes Apple TV content. With Ev’s permission I will recommend this post from Apple TV Discussion’s Forum http://discussions.apple.com/message.jspa?messageID=8701628
That gives an idea about some Whys with content. But since a lot of people, including SD guy, NY guy and EV himself have brought TDK to 9th place of Top Rentals, this is clearly not a content management issue.
Technically, and I don’t think how close it resembles Google’s You Tube distribution, Ad/Bot world network of Data centers, but a very good guess is that is not centralized nor duplicated redundant but distributed.
I imagine there is a department that does the uploads and propagates the movie throughout this unknown network of video servers. There must be rules to dynamically update the iTunes and Apple TV’s clients, but there is clearly a limit on how many clients are requesting X or Y content asset at the same time, I.e, Concurrency. It becomes a traffic nightmare when you consider DRM, packages or envelopes and management data. Therefore when our Apple TV client or iTunes connects online, it must be routed to and served from a primary node of the unknown network for all of this, probably by originating IP + Country set-up. I doubt Apple serves Poughkeepsie from the same node it serves San Diego, but it may do so if traffic is right.
On top of that streaming HD will take… wow… a LOT of bandwidth when you add all of us here waiting for the asset (movie) to become available plus the ones that are actually streaming it as I write.
It would be interesting to see if after the 24Hr rental period, the same problem shows up for these guys who saw it…
Wow this was long. Sorry. Blame Apple for not letting me watch TDK. But I am loyal and patient

The link provided by george makes it work, but here in MN still no dice.
Apple TV- can only buy
Itunes-can only buy when navigating normally

The market out there is tough for Apple TV.
Amazon has T.D.K. in Bluray for $21.99 including a Digital Copy for your PC, Apple TV and/or PSP, iPod/iPhone.
I was not going to buy a Bluray player this xmas but for $196 I couldn’t help myself. Also the upscaling from DVD to HD is pretty good.
I am certain that 2009 is the year for under $200 Bluray, and with Amazon prices… mmm…
I still can not believe Kingdom of the Crystal Skull is not yet available as an HD title on ATV.
Apple TV is a fantastic product with great potential. BUT the market window IMHO is 2009 before we see all kinds of IPTV and WebTV players, portals, boxes with better features and better prices (and content!).

No luck at all in Mission Viejo, California getting TDK with Apple TV as “rent HD”.

I-Tunes store told me to update the software. Of course, I am at the latest level.

Ron

From I-Tunes Customer Support at 10:43 am PT today (30 Dec):

Hi Ron,

I understand that you are still unable to locate the rental button for “The Dark Knight” on your Apple TV after updating your software. I know how upsetting that must be. I am happy to help.

Finding a solution for you is important to me, so I have requested assistance with the issue you reported. You will receive an email after the matter has been investigated and further information is available.

Thank you for your patience. Apple wants your iTunes experience to be as enjoyable as possible. Take care, Ron, and have a great new year!

So today I restarted my Apple TV and still nothing changed. But then I changed my iTunes Store location to Canada since it seems that they’ve got it and sure enough they do. I tried renting but got the “You account is only good for the US Version of the store.” So i then switched back to the US Store and went back to movies and found that the Top Movies page finally updated. Now at the top The Dark Knight banner ad says “Now Available to Rent” and has moved from the center ad to one ad to the right. But when I select TDK, no go. Still no rent options.

Just started the Apple-TV and went to “Top Movies”. TDK was at the top with a banner under it saying “Now Available for Rent”. I clicked it and the RENT HD button was there. It is downloading now

Well, that didn’t take long… Grrrr…

Good thing too, since downloading it on my PS3 in HD would have taken forever. PS3 high-def movie files are huge compared to Apple TV (like 2x). With no discernable improvement in quality, I might add…

Just rented TDK. Some observations- forgive my not knowing the technical terms for this, but did anyone notice that while most scenes were letterboxed several others (like Batman standing on top of the skyscraper in Hong Kong for one, but many others) filled the whole screen (on a 16×9 plasma that is)? I’ve never scene that and may suggest some encoding problems as the cause for the delay.

Somewhere in the freebies the director talks about filming in IMAX and leaving it for the few that saw the release in an IMAX theater.
TDK seems to be continuously available in iTunes now. I will go and check ATV later. But it seems all our rants got to the right ears
Or demand went down…